People have beenpainting pictures for at least 30,000 years.The earliest pictures were paintedby people who hunted animals.They used to paint pictures of the animals they

wanted to catch andkill.Pictures of this kind have been found on the walls of caves in Franceand Spain.No one knows why they were painted there.Perhaps the painters

thought that theirpictures would help them to catch these animals.Or perhaps human beings havealways wanted to tell stories in pictures.

About 5,000 yearsago,the Egyptians and other people in the Near Eastbegan to use pictures as kind of writing. They drew simple pictures or signs torepresent things and

ideas,and also torepresent the sounds of their language.The signs there people used became akind of alphabet.

The Egyptians usedto record information and to tell stories by putting picture-writing andpictures together. When an important person died,scenes and stories from hislife

were painted andcarved on the walls of the place where he was buried.Some of these pictures arelike modern comic strip stones.It has been said that Egypt is the home of the

comic strip.But forEgyptians,pictures still had magic power. So they did not try to make their wayof writing simple.The ordinary people could not understand it.

By the year 1000BC,people who lived in the area around the Mediterranean Sea had developed a simpler system of writing. The signs they usedwere very easy to write,and

there were fewer ofthem than in the Egyptian system.This was because each sign,orletter,represented only one sound in their language.The Greeks developed thissystem

and formed theletters of the Greek alphabet.The Romans copied the idea and the Roman alphebetis now used all over the world.

These days,we canwrite down a story,or record information,without using pictures.But we stillneed pictures of all kinds.drawing,photographs,signs and diagrams.We find

them everywhere.inbooks and newspapers,in the street,and on the walls of the places where we liveand work.Pictures help us to understand and remember things more

easily,and they canmake a story much more interesting.

Pictures ofanimals were painted on the walls of caves in Franceand Spainbecause______.

A.the hunters wantedto see the pictures

B.the painters wereanimal lovers

C.the painters wantedto show imagination

D.the pictures werethought to be helpful